Salt Spring Centre

Arrive at 355 Blackburn Road on Salt Spring Island and the rules of the place announce themselves early. Check-in is at 4:00 pm. Outdoor shoes stay at the door. Cell service is unreliable, and a courtesy phone in the dining room covers short calls. The Centre asks guests to leave laptops and phones out of the dining area.

The Salt Spring Centre of Yoga was founded in 1981 by Baba Hari Dass, a master yogi from India. It describes itself as a non-profit educational and spiritual retreat centre, and as the west coast of Canada's longest running spiritual and wellness retreat centre. The land is 69 acres of forest, gardens, meadow and trails, with a lake for swimming. The Centre's homepage puts Baba Hari Dass's teaching in one line: "As soon as a person starts thinking I want to be a better person, that is the start of yoga."

His influence runs through the programming. Going Deeper, the Centre's silent retreat, was created by Baba Hari Dass specifically for turning attention inward. Participants keep a vow of silence and eat a simple vegetarian diet, and the Centre covers the windows and keeps the lighting minimal to make what it calls a cave-like atmosphere. Other retreats are gentler. The Yoga & Wellness Weekend Retreats offer Level 1, Level 2 and restorative classes, and the Nature and Nurture Retreat adds Vedic philosophy, mantra and Arati. There are also personal, self-guided retreats, and Satsang and Kirtan are offered weekly.

The days run on shared work and a plain table. Meals are lacto-vegetarian, with much of the produce coming from the Centre's own organic farm. Karma Yoga, selfless service, is part of the life there. Centre Wellness offers massage, Ayurvedic treatments and acupuncture, and a wood-burning sauna sits on the grounds. Visiting teachers and groups rent the venues, among them the Program House and Satsang Room, the Garden House and Yoga Studio, and the Pond Dome. One Victoria Iyengar group has come back for 24 annual retreats. The Centre is booked out for 2026 and taking inquiries for 2027. It acknowledges that it sits on the traditional unceded territory of the Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group and the Saanich First Nations.